2006 Top Xbox Live Games Announced

Major Nelson, of Xbox Live fame, today announced the top games on Xbox Live over the past year. There’s a few surprises in the lists, so I’ll post each of the tables, then discuss what they mean.

First up, the top Xbox Live Titles by GamerTag. What this chart shows is the number of individuals who have played each game. This only measures games for the 360 and not original Xbox games played on 360s.

2006 Top Xbox 360 Titles (Unique Users)

1	Gears of War
2	Hexic HD
3	Call of Duty 2
4	Ghost Recon 3
5	Oblivion
6	PGR3
7	Perfect Dark Zero
8	Call of Duty 3
9	UNO
10	EA SPORTS™ Fight Night Round 3

Unsurprisingly, Gears of War tops this list. Given that more then a tenth of all Xbox 360 owners have a copy of this game it’s basically. Hexic in second place is pretty much a statistical blip, since every single Xbox Hard Drive comes with a free copy of it. I was surprised by Perfect Dark Zero getting into the top ten, but it was a launch game, despite being pretty poor.

So, on to Xbox Live Arcade Purchases. Basically does what it says on the tin

2006 Top Arcade Titles (Purchased)

1	UNO
2	Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting
3	Geometry Wars Evolved
4	Marble Blast Ultra
5	PAC-MAN
6	DOOM
7	Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
8	GALAGA
9	Gauntlet
10	Frogger

I don’t have much to say here, although I was surprised that both Pac-Man and Frogger made the top ten.

Finally, we have Original Xbox Titles list. No surprises at all.

2006 Top Original Xbox Titles

1	Halo 2
2	Battlefield 2: MC
3	Star Wars: Battlefront 2
4	Madden NFL 2006
5	Counter-Strike
6	Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
7	Forza Motorsport
8	Call of Duty 2
9	Ghost Recon 2
10	PGR 2

So there you go. Those three tables sum up the most played games on the 360 in the past year. For the top twenty lists, head towards Major Nelson’s Blog.